However, I was rambling round India in 2010 and found myself in Rishikesh. I decided to visit the Beatles' ashram, mainly as I heard it was a bit of a crumbling ruin that was a quiet place to visit for free.

When I got there, the gates are overgrown and it seems to be in a forgotten part of town. An old man with the traditional dreadlocks of the baba holymen was waiting, asking for an entrance fee. Obviously, that wasn't an official fee so I sidestepped him and made my way through a hole in the fence.

Indeed, what I found there was a mass of crumbling buildings, each abandoned and left for the plants. But it was beautiful, the egg-shaped meditation chambers and emptied rooms seemed to me like a relic from a forgotten age.

I must confess that I don't really think that this should be a preserved monument, as it would simply turn it into a tourist hell-hole. Instead, I added my drawing and some of my favourite lyrics to the wall in the pictures above (including drawing a moustache on that beaming sun) and made a quiet tribute to the Beatles by walking around and reflecting on their career.